Radio Wester Ross is the community broadcaster for the Gairloch, Loch Ewe and Lochbroom areas of Wester Ross. It broadcasts a music-led service to the communities in Wester Ross, in the

Highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and it is the only commercial FM radio station in its area. The station broadcasts in stereo on 106.0, 106.6FM in the Gairloch area and on 96.8 and 102.2FM in the

Ullapool Ullapool (; gd, Ulapul ) is a village and port located in Northern Scotland. Ullapool has a population of around 1,500 inhabitants. It is located around northwest of Inverness in Ross and Cromarty, Scottish Highlands. Despite its modest size, ...

and

Coigach Coigach () is a peninsula north of Ullapool, in Wester Ross in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The area consists of a traditional crofting and fishing community of a couple of hundred houses located between mountain and shore on a peninsula ...

areas. The station is staffed by volunteers from across the area, from Gairloch to Ullapool and beyond, as well as from other areas of the Highlands and Islands, broadcasting locally-originated and syndicated shows from its own presenters and partner stations throughout the week. It offers a mix of local news and information as well as music varying widely from the 60s onwards. The station is owned by the community and is a registered charity operating on a not-for-profit basis.

History

The station began as Two Lochs Radio which was at one time Britain's smallest commercial radio station. In April 2008, Two Lochs Radio launched an online "Listen live" streaming service, accessible from a button on its homepage, and also in the Reciva database for Internet radios. In January 2012, Two Lochs Radio joined the large number of UK commercial and BBC stations also available via

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. It is also available via

TuneIn TuneIn is a global audio streaming service delivering live news, radio, sports, music, and podcasts to over 75 million monthly active users. TuneIn is operated by the company TuneIn Inc. which is based in San Francisco, California. The company ...

. In 2012, Ullapool community station Lochbroom FM started to use Two Lochs Radio as its sustaining service. In 2020, broadcasting regulator Ofcom formally transferred the Lochbroom FM licence to Wester Ross Radio Ltd, the company that also holds the Two Lochs Radio licence. In April 2024, a rebranding took place with RWR - Radio Wester Ross (or RWR) being used instead of the Two Lochs Radio & Lochbroom FM names.

Programming

Radio Wester Ross's programme schedule includes daily breakfast and afternoon shows, plus a range of individual music and local interest programmes, including Gaelic broadcasts and recordings from local events, and shows from several other independent radio presenters. Following its rebranding, the station no longer broadcasts Gaelic programmes produced by

CKJM-FM CKJM-FM is a radio station, broadcasting from Chéticamp, Nova Scotia, Canada on 106.1 FM. Owned by La Cooperative Radio-Chéticamp, the station has broadcast as a full-time French-language community radio service since 1995. History CKJM's his ...

Cape Breton Cape Breton Island (french: link=no, île du Cap-Breton, formerly '; gd, Ceap Breatainn or '; mic, Unamaꞌki) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18. ...

. The station produces its own local news bulletins, and broadcasts UK national news provided by Radio News Hub.

Awards

Two Lochs Radio was given the "Calor Scottish Business in the Community Business" award in 2004 and is a three-times winner of the Wallace Sword award for the best Gaelic magazine programme produced by a Highland community radio station. It was also nominated for the

Scottish Countryside Alliance Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

rural enterprise award in 2009.http://www.ruralgateway.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2513

References

External links

* {{Coord, 57.7310, N, 5.6986, W, source:wikidata, display=title Radio stations in Scotland Mass media in Highland (council area) Radio stations in the Highlands & Islands Gairloch Radio stations established in 2003